7/2/2009

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has issued its decision (.pdf) in the ethics complaint against Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski.

The good news for Judge Kozinski is that the panel does not find any ethical violation in his handling of the Isaacs case. Nor does the panel specifically find any ethical violation in his handling of sexually explicit material on his server — although the judge does come in for some criticism for carelessness and embarrassing the judiciary.

The panel “admonishes” Kozinski for failing to take safeguards to prevent the sexually explicit material from being distributed publicly:

We join with the Special Committee in admonishing the Judge that his conduct exhibiting poor judgment with respect to this material created a public controversy that can reasonably be seen as having resulted in embarrassment to the institution of the federal judiciary.

Don’t be misled: this “admonishment” is not a finding of judicial misconduct. If the panel had made a specific finding of judicial misconduct, you would have seen language like “reprimand” or “censure” in the opinion — options available under 28 U.S.C. §§ 354(a)–(b). That is not what the panel does. Rather, the panel has chosen to conclude the proceeding without a finding of misconduct:

We determine that the Judge’s acknowledgment of responsibility together with other corrective action, his apology, and our admonishment, combined with the public dissemination of this opinion, properly conclude this proceeding.

Somehow I don’t think Cyrus Sanai will be pleased. I’m sure we’ll hear from him in short order.

The panel says that “the Judge’s possession of sexually explicit offensive material combined with his carelessness in failing to safeguard his sphere of privacy was judicially imprudent.” This seems fair. Nobody ever said it was prudent. As the judges note: “Some of the content of the stuff subdirectory — the sexually explicit material — is undoubtedly offensive to many.” This is true, as the judge himself has acknowledged. However, the material was kept for its humor or novelty value — something media reports from the L.A. Times failed to make clear at the time. See my posts for some examples.

The panel also makes it clear that the media did not take care to portray the matter accurately:

Some media reports in June 2008 suggested that the Judge maintained, and intended to maintain, a public website, as that term is commonly understood — a presentation of offensive sexually explicit material open for public browsing. This investigation has established, however, that such a characterization is incorrect. As explained in further detail, the computer files described in media reports in June 2008 constituted a small fraction of a vast aggregation of various items that the Judge had received by e-mail over many years and had retained in a folder, or “subdirectory,” on a personal computer in his home, which had been connected to the Internet using web server software.

Through a combination of improper security configuration and carelessness on the part of the Judge, the aggregation of retained files became accessible to the public.

One of the biggest defects of the federal judicial misconduct system is that the worst misconduct will be excused if the judge says “sorry, won’t happen again.” The most egregious wrongs, such as Samuel Kent’s sexual assaults, will result in a complaint being dismissed if a Judicial Council finds that “appropriate corrective action” has been taken.

This practice was discussed in a notable dissent to a similar dismissal of a misconduct complaint, as follows:

“Finally, I find the district judge’s slippery statement of contrition risible. As the majority notes, we wrote the district judge and offered
to close the matter without further action, provided he acknowledge his “improper conduct” and “pledge not to repeat it.” See maj. at 1181.
This is consistent with the accepted practice of giving judges subject to a valid disciplinary complaint a chance to mitigate or correct their
misconduct by an open acknowledgment of wrongdoing, an apology and a pledge to mend their ways. See, e.g., In re Charges of Judicial Misconduct, 404 F.3d 688, 700 (Judicial Council of the 2d Cir. 2005).
The district judge’s response here falls far short of what I would consider corrective action.”
In re Complaint of Judicial Misconduct (Real), 425 F.3d 1179, 1184 (9th Cir. 2005)(Kozinski, C.J. diss.)

As Judge Kozinski noted in his Real dissent, the “accepted practice of giving judges subject to a valid disciplinary complaint a chance to mitigate or correct their misconduct” means that where a dismissal occurs based on corrective action being taken, there has ALREADY been a predicate finding of misconduct. Those are Judge Kozinski’s words in a published opinion, remember, not mine.

Therefore, your conclusion that there was no finding of misconduct is FALSE. A dismissal based on corrective action being taken, as Judge Kozinski himself has written, means that there was judicial misconduct that had to be corrected.

That being said, the “corrective action dismissal” is now the primary method for whitewashing judicial misconduct going all the way up to sexual assault by a federal judge against court employees. There is virtually nothing that will not be excused by a judge saying “sorry, won’t be caught like that again”.

I also point out that the order covers only Judge Kozinski’s complaint on himself, and does not address my complaint filed with the Third Circuit earlier this year after I obtained the intervention of SCOTUS concerning my right to file the complaint with that Circuit. However, the Third Circuit has shown complete disinterest in hearing testimony of anyone else other than Judge Kozinski, for independently verifying any of the contentions he made, or considering conflicting evidence, so it will be interesting to see how that is disposed.

Judge Kozinski showed his mastery of procedural intricacies by calling an investigation on himself and limiting the investigation to the content of the Los Angeles Times article and not the nearly simultaneous article in the ABA Journal website on Judge Kozinski’s copyrighted mp3 trading.

I did not find Judge Kozinski’s website through Yahoo, as suggested by the committee. Indeed, the report does not disclose what I found or how I found it.

I found the “stuff” directory by a link on Google that led me to a “free mp3″ trading site. I did not have any direct evidence that Judge Kozinski was trading porn in 2007. I did have evidence showing that he was trading copyrighted mp3 files.

The Special Committee treated those issues as outside the scope of the investigation. Thus the most serious wrongdoing I discovered–trading copyrighted songs that would create millions of dollars of liability for, say, a stay-at-home mom targeted by the RIAA–was completely ignored by the investigating committee, which declined to invite me or anyone other than Judge Kozinski to testify at the secret hearing.

Perhaps most important, the critical pieces of objective evidence in the case–Judge Kozinski’s computer and his internet records–were NOT audited or examined by the investigating committee. You can’t investigate computer-related misconduct if you do not look at the computer involved. The Third Circuit deliberately ignored the most critical piece of objective evidence in the matter, allowing it to be completely spoliated by the Judge.

As long as Patterico feels the need to misrepresent the law, it is perfectly appropriate to point out what it really is, particularly when I can quote Judge Kozinski himself on what a “corrective action dismissal” entails.

The fact that you are not interested in what the law actually is, even when explained by Judge Kozinksi himself in one of his best pieces of writing, is hardly my problem, though it again nicely reflects the intellectual integrity of his defenders.

1. “Corrective action” does not necessarily imply misconduct. See 07-89104 . There, a letter was misdirected by the Clerk’s office to a judge who rejected it based on a local rule prohibiting parties from writing to the judge in their case. A subsequent letter was properly delivered, and AK dismissed the charges in part based on “corrective action” – it cannot seriously be argued that there’s misconduct there. Also, in 07-89108, the order explicitly stated that the charge is “dismissed, without a finding of misconduct, on the basis of “appropriate corrective action.” Finally, in 07-89124 , AK similarly dismissed a charge on delay based on corrective action, while noting that there’s no evidence of misconduct. The point of the “corrective action” is similar to a settlement – there’s no need to admit wrongdoing in order to settle.

2. The 3d Cir opinion explicitly discussed the music files (see fn 7). Also, it noted that, before accepting the technical stipulations, they” were reviewed and verified by the Special Committee’s technical consultant prior to counsel’s executing the stipulation”; to “verify” seems to me pretty clear that the consultant at least checked the computer.

Cyrus really did the world a tremendous disservice, and has been proven wrong by a source of tremendous value.

Kozinksi, one of the brightest and most interesting judges int he world, is a human being who did something stupid, but not awful. Cyrus is a jerk who tried to ruin someone’s life, and wasted so much time of the people’s court system, because he’s taken it personally that his awful and extreme and wrong legal theories were smacked down by a very good judge.

No matter… Kozinski knew he would have to deal with little nuts when he became a prominent man. He made a huge mistake in his security system and was broken into and lied about by Cyrus.

In the long run, this will be a footnote in a brilliant jurist’s career. It’s unfortunate, but these things happen to many normal and prominent people.

Cyrus has lost his latest round of state court appeals as well–including the multi-year saga where Cyrus sued his former landlord over what amounts to the landlord sending a rent increase with a typo (LOWERING HIS RENT), Cyrus pouncing on the typo and refusing to pay the correct amount, then getting evicted, then suing the landlord and hyper-litigating the case for years.

In my opinion Cyrus is a small and petty man who has slandered a legal giant and who must now eat his words.

I will address this substantive post. It would be nice if there were more of this kind.

1. It is hardly unusual for the Ninth Circuit, in unpublished opinions, to ignore binding circuit law. All you have done is demonstrate that Judge Kozinski does not follow the law. If there was no misconduct, then a dismissal based on “appropriate corrective action” is absurd, since there is then nothing to correct. The practice, at least in the PUBLISHED case law, is reserved for instances where some wrongdoing has occurred. In this particular case, there was an admonishment regarding the wrongdoing, and this is now getting correctly reported by the AP, Bloomberg, etc.

2. The footnote is based solely on Judge Kozinski’s testimony. It is false, and I had evidence to show it was false, which was never presented at the hearing. As to your contention regarding the stipulations, you are misreading the clear language of the opinion. It states

“In order to assist with technical issues in this matter, the Special Committee retained an information technology consultant, who reviewed relevant documents and assisted counsel for the Special Committee in confirming certain technical information. The Special Committee also consulted with the Deputy Circuit Executive for Information
Technology for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
….
After a series of exchanges, counsel for the Special Committee and the Judge’s counsel agreed upon twenty-eight factual stipulations relating to the technical matters at issue in the investigation. The technical stipulations were reviewed and verified by the Special Committee’s technical consultant prior to counsel’s executing the stipulation.”

Opinion at 8-9.

The opinion unambiguously states that the technical consultant reviewed only “documents”, i.e. the documents provided by Judge Kozinski and the technical stipulations. There was no independent examination of his computer (which no doubt was thoroughly scrubbed anyway). Only the “stipulations” were reviewed and verified; for the non-lawyer, a stipulation is an agreed statement of fact or law in a legal proceeding. Judge Kozinski never handed over his computer or internet records for independent examination. Any suggestion that the consultant physically reviewed it is an invention unsupported by the opinion or any other evidence.

An investigation of cyber-misconduct that allows the defendant to present the computer files and records, without independent examination of the computer, emailk and internet server records, is not a serious investigation at all.

It seems to me that a corrective action dismissal is distinguishable from the panel decision here.

A corrective action dismissal gives judges subject to a valid disciplinary complaint an opportunity to mitigate or correct improper conduct after the filing of the complaint. The taking of remedial action, or at least the promise to do so in the future, is a kind of condition precedent to the dismissal, which is the basis for Kozinski saying that there must have been misconduct in the first place.

Here, the dismissal was based in part on remedial action taken before the investigation commenced. Whatever mess existed had already been cleaned up by the time the panel started wrestling with the issue. If there was ever any misconduct, there was no longer.

It seems to me there is a difference between mistakes and misconduct. Rather than finding misconduct, I think the Court admonished Judge Kozinski for a mistake that could be corrected, e.g., in permitting access to his private computer and/or maintaining questionable materials online.

You are a liar, Stephen G. Again, par for the course for the trolls on this site

I WON the Sanai v. Saltz appeal you refer to in a published decision. The decision rejected rulings of a different panel of the Court of Appeal and a half dozen federal district court judges on the question of whether one can directly sue persons who make false, misleading or incomplete statements to consumer credit reporting agencies under California Civil Code Section 1785.26(a).

The other side took it to the California Supreme Court, relying on the conflicting Court of Appeal decision issued two weeks prior to the argument in my case. Amicus supporting a grant of review included the California Bankers Association, California Landlord’s Association, and various consumer credit reporting agency trade groups.

Result? The California Supreme Court depublished the other case.

I am back in trial court and will win Sanai v. Saltz. I will also be taking up the fact that the wife of the trial court judge who ruled against me was at that time a lawyer for the other side.

As for the merits of Sanai v. Saltz case, the issue is consumer credit reporting and the right to access the files kept by the cosumer credit reporting agency.

I will say that if a landlord offers a tenant lower rent and the tenant accepts, the landlord should stick with the deal rather than welshing. The core wrong in the deal was the effort by the incompetent and dishonest manager of the property, Joe Tortorello, to reverse course after his management of the property came under scrutiny by his boss (Tortorello was later fired for cause due to his mismanagement). It was Tortorello’s frantic efforts to extort money from me by violating Civil Code Section 1785 that caused this lawsuit.

The issues in Sanai v. Saltz are not petty; they are of national importance, as the amicus briefs demanding review by the California Supreme Court repeatedly asserted.

The funny thing about the case is that if the other side had settled, the law would now be set by the depublished case, Liceaga, and no one would be able to sue in state court for these wrongs. By fighting for eight years and then losing, First American Corporation/First Advantage Corporation snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory.

DRJ is right. Kozinski is still, be all rational account, an amazingly good judge. One great example of how great a judge he is is how he tore Cyrus’s legal arguments and behavior down. Other jurists did not do such a good job, but then… other jurists didn’t get Cyrus to harass them with unfounded accusations, either.

Cyrus will not shut up about this, and that’s actually good now that he’s been thoroughly discredited by reasonable and reputable people. I’m glad Cyrus was willing to come out and show just how obsessed and ridiculous and out of step with the rest of the profession he is, even after the case has been given careful consideration.

But if you’re a powerful judge, you’re going to get some enemies… criminals, greedy jerks, thugs. You need to protect yourself and your family (let’s not forget how Cyrus behaved towards’s the judge’s family). You need to pay experts if you don’t know how to secure your computer. Perhaps you need to give up the vices that the rest of us can enjoy as part of your public service. Life’s not fair, and Kozinski’s carelessness permitted a pest to embarrass his high position.

It’s weird to blame termites when they destroy your house. It’s the owner’s fault for not protecting the building. It’s weird to blame slimy crazy characters for invading your privacy when you are this prominent and powerful. It’s Kozinski’s fault for his mistakes. But he’s still one of the best judges in world history, and will be remembered as such.

The allegation that the Judge maintained a publicly accessible website involves
conduct outside the performance of judicial duties. Cognizable misconduct nevertheless
includes “conduct occurring outside the performance of official duties” which “might
have a prejudicial effect on the administration of the business of the courts, including a
substantial and widespread lowering of public confidence in the courts among reasonable
people.” Rule 3(h)(2). This provides the starting point for our analysis.
….
As noted, the Rules specify that “conduct
occurring outside the performance of official duties” may constitute misconduct if “the
conduct might have a prejudicial effect on the administration of the business of the courts,
including a substantial and widespread lowering of public confidence in the courts among
reasonable people.” Rule 3(h)(2).
….
But possession of controversial private material such as that at issue here carries
with it the peril of unwanted disclosure. As noted, the conduct at issue here extends
beyond the purely private possession of controversial material. The Judge became aware
over time that, despite his initial intent, members of the public could access material in his stuff subdirectory because of the Internet accessibility of the subdirectory.
….
The identified conduct at issue in this Complaint is the possession of sexually
explicit offensive material combined with its public accessibility.
….
Canon 2(A) provides that “[a] judge . . . should act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.”
….
Imprudent extra-judicial conduct that becomes public may result in gratuitously offending many people and invite public controversy, which in turn may undermine public confidence in the judiciary. The Judge’s possession of sexually explicit offensive material combined with his
carelessness in failing to safeguard his sphere of privacy was judicially imprudent.
Moreover, once the Judge became aware in 2007 that offensive material could be accessed by members of the public, his inattention to the need for prompt corrective action amounted to a disregard of a serious risk of public embarrassment. The Judge in
his acceptance of responsibility and his apology has acknowledged as much. We join
with the Special Committee in admonishing the Judge that his conduct exhibiting poor
judgment with respect to this material created a public controversy that can reasonably be
seen as having resulted in embarrassment to the institution of the federal judiciary.

The misconduct the Council found was “exhibiting poor judgment with respect to this material [that] created a public controversy that can reasonably be seen as having resulted in embarrassment to the institution of the federal judiciary.”

You can, of course, disagree with whether this was misconduct, but that is what the Council found.

This is a mere fraction of the misconduct Judge Kozinski in fact committed, and Judge Kozinski’s history of repeatedly committed the same misconduct after apologizing for it is not accounted for.

Someone else CS can argue with (H/T Volokh)…[Jonathan Adler, July 2, 2009 at 9:50am] TrackbacksKozinski Cleared: The Judicial Council of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which was charged with reviewing the judicial misconduct complaint against Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, has concluded its investigation. The council’s opinion admonished Kozinski for poor judgment, but noted that he acknowledged his mistake and cleared him of misconduct. (HT:How Appealing) More on Above the Law.

h2u, it is a credit to this blog that Cyrus is permitted to go nuts here.

Cyrus is no troll, just a truly awful jerk towards real people’s lives for his extremely petty and selfish and paranoid aims. But I really like this blog for having so many people who are true believers and completely disagree with everyone else here. It can be very tedious, but if you want, you can dig into the disagreement.

With Cyrus, of course, once you know what he did in court and how wonderful it was that Kozinski wrote about it, you aren’t going to take his long aimless comments very seriously, but they are here if you need to know what Kozinski was fighting against.

Kozinski Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, was admonished by a panel of his colleagues, in a report made public today, for posting sexually explicit material on a publicly accessible Internet server.

“We find that the judge’s possession of sexually explicit offensive material combined with his carelessness in failing to safeguard his sphere of privacy was judicially imprudent,” said the report by Anthony J. Scirica.

The panel, headed by Scirica, found that Kozinski allowed such material to remain on the Internet, even after discovering that it could be accessed by the public.

The panel admonished Kozinski for “exhibiting poor judgment … [that] created a public controversy that can reasonably be seen as having resulted in embarrassment to the federal judiciary.”

Because Kozinski offered an apology and took “corrective action,” the judges ruled that the disciplinary proceeding should end with an admonishment.

The Los Angeles Times reported on the existence of the site last year while Kozinski was presiding over a federal obscenity trial. He declared a mistrial in the wake of the public controversy that ensued.

Stephen G, that’s such an amazing case with the rent. Landlord are human beings who have an honest vocation. When we agree to rent their homes, we only ask to be treated fairly. Cyrus, of course, wanted to screw his landlord over with extremely expensive litigation. To save a tiny fraction of the expense to others. He is a serial litigant and must be disbarred.

Cyrus will tell you that everyone is a monster who is screwing him… but he never tells you what they screwed him out of. Some tiny amount of money, perhaps. Or maybe they were so awful as to publicly speak out about their view of Cyrus… such a horrible thing! Now, they may not criticize Cyrus as much as Cyrus criticizes them, or go to any extreme lengths to do so as Cyrus does to them, but somehow, in Cyrus’s world, he’s the good guy. He expects to be able to bully good people, and relies on their honor to take advantage of them.

I said I would ultimately win the case. Whether I win this round, I cannot say.

The Court of Appeal removed the second judge on the case, Elizabeth Grimes, based on her bias and misconduct. I could not press the financial interest claim against the next judge, because he found that his wife’s law firm’s web page regarding its clients was not “admissible evidence” and blocked ALL discovery that would have lead to non-hearsay admission. Now that he has been removed from the case, I will be taking that issue and seeing where it leads.

I also want to make something clear about Sanai v. Saltz. The bias of the trial court judges was not against ME, Cyrus Sanai, because of who I am. The bias was against anyone bringing these kinds of claims, because of the financial interests of Judge Grimes and her successor in the maintenance of the existing consumer credit reporting system as to the former judge, and the fat fees paid by First American Corporation to the judge’s wife in the latter judge. The exact same result would have been obtained by any plaintiff making a claim under Civil Code Section 1785 in front of these two judges.

My complaints were never dismissed on summary judgment grounds or after trial. In both rounds, the trial court found that what I complained about was, even if true, not illegal. I thus lost twice on motions for judgment on the pleadings, and twice reversed those orders. Each time the trial court judge found that the conduct I complained about was so obviously proper that I must have filed the action in bad faith. Each time the Court of Appeal found the legal reasoning of the judge manifestly wrong and reversed.

The Court of Appeal has repeatedly noted that there is very little about Sanai v. Saltz that is factually disputed. The issue there has been whether what was done to me was illegal. The answer? Yes it was illegal.

Vince, that’s annoying how they say ‘posted’ to a ‘public server’ when he really stored them on a private server that he left unsecured for losers to snoop in.

We know the reporter rewrote it to make it sound like the guy was uploading sex tapes to youtube instead of storing a risque joke at home.

Pathetic, but no surprise there. Cyrus did damage. It’s much easier to destroy than build, which is why you will never hear that Cyrus ever built something or helped someone or accomplished anything. Just that he made a lot of noise.

And let’s not forget… Kozinksi shut it down and apologized as quickly as he could.

Cyrus is the one who posted it to the internet to share it. He took as long as he could to do so, promising egregious and disgusting things with the most hilariously dishonest descriptions.

To Cyrus, the playboy bunny outfit is animal sex bestiality rape murder. Like I said, it’s easier to destroy than to build, and some people will never hear the corrections or take the time to understand that Cyrus has been thoroughly debunked.

I was not renting anyone’s “home”. I was renting an apartment from Donald Bren’s The Irvine Company. The same offers I received went to other people as well. You contention that I was renting someone’s “home” demonstrates, again, that this sites’ regular commentators are just remarkable for their refusal to actually read stuff before writing.

Sanai v. Saltz is in fact a major accomplishment. Now everyone in California can exercise the right created by the California Legislature to sue firms who try to screw up one’s credit by making false, misleading, or incomplete statements in order to extort money.

Cyrus, isn’t it interesting that I predicted this exact outcome at the exact moment this was first mentioned, and you swore up and down I was dead wrong?

You were wrong, Cyrus. And obviously so. You’re a terrible little person who is not a victim. Kozinksi had you pegged from the start and was doing his sworn duty to comment on you. It was no misconduct to do so, and that is obvious to everyone but you, the paranoid and deluded supervictim.

You were the one who suggested a year ago that I broke into Judge Kozinski’s house to access his computer. Now you are talking about Playboy bunny outfits. Clearly you must have found something, or think you found something, on Judge Kozinski’s site that I never saw.

Since you have, once again, stepped off the cliff and are in mental free fall, I will not respond to any more of your comments.

Making stuff up = not agreeing with Cyrus. So far, basically everyone involved, except for Cyrus, has been making stuff up.

I again note that Cyrus said I was dead wrong a long time ago when I predicted this is exactly what would happen. Somehow, I made up the future with magic. I would tell Cyrus who I am (he’d be surprised that we’re acquaintances), but he’d probably destroy my life. bar membership is a powerful thing to trust someone with.

The reason you find the Sanai v. Saltz case so offensive is because I insisted that one of the wealthiest private companies in the world adhere to its written offer.

To someone of your ilk, the idea that a large corporation would have to abide by its contractual agreements or the law is, of course, sacrilege.

The question really is, why on earth would anyone want to enter into a contractual agreement with you, JD, given that you are an apologist for tearing up contracts when it suits them. Under your view, anyone can tear up any offer or agreement by saying “oops, I made a mistake”. Which come to think of it, is probably an argument that Judge Kozinski would find appealing, as one of his favorite performance pieces was his parody of a Paul Simon song Kozinski called “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Contract”.

The Judicial Council of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which was charged with reviewing the judicial misconduct complaint against Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, has conc……

The Court of Appeal has repeatedly noted that there is very little about Sanai v. Saltz that is factually disputed. The issue there has been whether what was done to me was illegal. The answer? Yes it was illegal.

Respectfully, I think I’ll wait to read that in the final disposition of the case, rather than in a blog comment by one of the litigants.

Oh, come on Cyrus at #31–when a landlord makes an obvious, patent and clear typo in a rent increase notice, then immediately informs the tenant (in this case you) of the mistake, your position (Kings-X I declare acceptance of the rent notice sent in obvious error) is nothing less than bull s***. (The trial court so found and the court of appeal agreed.)

This has nothing to do with contract rights, and everything to do with you trying to capitalize on someone else’s good faith and obvious mistake. Being a large rental property owner should not make one any more or less venerable to predators trying to take advantage of a property manager’s employee’s obvious error.

You really are a living, breathing personification of why people hate my profession….

If people are writing a medley of Cyrus Sanai’s greatest hits, how can they forget about the never ending saga of the divorce of his parents being litigated up in Washington state. It is that litigation which gave rise to his vendetta against Judge Kozinski.

Cyrus and his brother Frederic were both disqualified as counsel in the litigation and his brother was actually disbarred. That is some SUHWEET lawyering right there, yessir.

h2u, it is a credit to this blog that Cyrus is permitted to go nuts here.

Juan, I absolutely agree — but I do think Cyrus is a horrible person who should probably disbarred. I actually supported part of his argument against Kozinski with regards to his distribution of copyrighted material. But his infatuation with bringing the man down is just scary at this point!

The reason you find the Sanai v. Saltz case so offensive is because I insisted that one of the wealthiest private companies in the world adhere to its written offer.

That’s actually not why I find it offensive.

I find it offensive because:

(1) I think that under the specific circumstances of the case, any reasonable person would have at least suspected the written offer was a mistake.

(2) I think your explanation for why you didn’t — that you thought your landlord was voluntarily and out-of-the-blue giving you a 25% rent reduction as a way of retaining tenants in light of the global economic situation — doesn’t pass the giggle test.

(3) I think, therefore, that you must have other motives in concocting such a nonsensical story.

(4) I know that you’re a Harvard-educated attorney whose practice involves transactional law, and who therefore must be acquainted with the unilateral mistake defense to contract formation.

(5) Connecting the dots, I think that you’ve been lying to the courts for more than a decade, and wasting enormous sums of money along the way, trying to defend against the consequences of a legal “Gotcha!” game that you tried to play with your landlord backfiring on you.

(6) I think “Gotcha!” lawyering is completely unprincipled and repulsive, and more than anything else is responsible for the contempt in which laypeople hold our profession.

Man, Daleyrocks, you are true to your lying SOS character again. Like Juan and StephenG, you just can’t stop the telling untruths.

I argued that case in front of the Washington State Supreme Court, and it is clear that order is going to be reversed. You can watch me perform at http://www.tvw.org. Put in Sanai to search, and enjoy watching what real oral argument looks like.

‘Contractual integrity’ = suing to enforce an obvious typo and losing (another less than bold prediction on my part).

George Costanza and Homer Simpson are only adorable on TV. In real life these kinds of people are really quite awful.

Remember folks, Cyrus also threatened to sue Patterico for some bland comments that he interpreted as a threat. Yeah, he’s that bad. Don’t ever misinterpret this weirdo’s obsessive paranoia to be funny.

People hate lawyers who lie, as many do. You are a liar, and profess to be a lawyer. You wrote

“Cyrus has lost his latest round of state court appeals as well–including the multi-year saga where Cyrus sued his former landlord over what amounts to the landlord sending a rent increase with a typo (LOWERING HIS RENT), Cyrus pouncing on the typo and refusing to pay the correct amount, then getting evicted, then suing the landlord and hyper-litigating the case for years.”

That was a lie. I won every important issue in Sanai v. Saltz.

My original suit was not against the landlord, I was not evicted. The case is Sanai v. Saltz. Harvey Saltz was the notorious owner of The U.D. Registry, Inc., successfully sued many times for his refusal to comply with Civil Code Section 1785.

I have many times faced lawyer who, like you, lie to judges, misrepresenting the outcome of cases. It is a risky strategy. If you choose to identify yourself, we can see your success in this profession.

So take the hint, StephenG–don’t blame the fact that people hate you on something I have done. If they hate you, its because they hate YOU.

No, Cyrus, I do not agree that you are the person to uphold “integrity”, contractual or otherwise (far from it); like your former landlord I made a numerical mistake, typing “31” when I meant to reference your post at #34.

I am well acquainted with the unilateral defense mistake. It is not relevant, because there was no defense. Here’s the issue.

After I could not get the matter of my rent agreed with Tortorello, I had the option of (a) suing the The Irvine Company, (b) finding a better landlord, or (c) waiting for The Irvine Company to sue me. I chose (b).

That was not good enough for Tortorello. He wanted the higher rent, because he was under increasing threat of termination (which eventually did occur). However, he was advised not to sue me by his attorneys at the time, because he could well lose. Therefore, he tried to extort the money from me.

There was no unilateral mistake, in my opinion, but even if there were, there was nothing to defend. It was Tortorello, on behalf of The Irvine Company, who decided to wage the vendetta by hiring The U.D. Registry Inc.

That’s the lawsuit. It’s all about Saltz, his company, and Tortorello’s extortion.

I have a little bit of experience in real estate litigation and I have no doubt it happened exactly the way Cyrus said it did. The lawyer told the rental agency weasel he did not have a case and the weasel thought he could screw Cyrus around by messing up his credit. Which leads to …

I think “Gotcha!” lawyering is completely unprincipled and repulsive, and more than anything else is responsible for the contempt in which laypeople hold our profession.

I think that my parents worked their fingers to send me to law school so that on occasion I could teach some asshole who thinks he can screw me around, with bad credit reports or otherwise, that playing passive-aggressive legal tricks on a lawyer is a lot like taking a swing at a boxer.

Well, that is support I am very surprised to see on this site, but I welcome it.

As nk points out, the “weasel” (name: Joe Tortorello) decided rather than take me on in a lawsuit, he would try to screw with my credit rating. Tortorello was eventually fired, but not before he had caused me injury.

Interesting fact. The Irvine Company wanted to settle with me and get rid of the case early, but The U.D. Registry stated it would sue them if they did, and instead indemnified The Irvine Company for its false statements. Then The U.D. Registry, Inc. filed a motion arguing that The Irvine Company was a necessary party, and had to be joined. They thus became parties to a case where I had no interest in suing them.

Now, of course, The Irvine Company is going to have stand behind the conduct of a guy it fired.

That is a lie. There was an attempt to do so in a kangaroo court, which is on its way to reversal by the Washington State Supreme Court. Again, check out http://www.tvw.org to see how oral argument is done (with a bad cold, I must say).

My argument states the underlying issue of the case–the corrupt appointment in Washington State of my father’s accountant as a judicial referee in the divorce. It is this corrupt practice, whereby a private party gets to have his paid servant acting as a judicial officer, that is the underlying wrong that the Washington State courts, Judge Zilly and Judge Kozinski want to protect.

Yes, I know, daleyrocks, you will state that you “read it somewhere” but that is your excuse for every lie you make.

LOL, Cyrus insults the entire site now, even though this site gave him every chance to state his case as well as he wanted to. This site alone let him make all manner of accusation and exaggeration. When it was done, Cyrus was threatening to sue because of all the mockery and harsh criticism he stirred up.

Fact is, the more Cyrus talks, the more clear the truth is about Cyrus.

He was extended every courtesy and reacted with a lawsuit threat. It’s as if that’s the only way he knows to react to something he dislikes.

But yeah… it’s the SITE that’s VICTIMIZING poor Cyrus for letting him say whatever he wanted, and then unanimously finding his accusations faulty.

That is a lie. There was an attempt to do so in a kangaroo court, which is on its way to reversal by the Washington State Supreme Court. Again, check out http://www.tvw.org to see how oral argument is done (with a bad cold, I must say).

What are you saying? That your brother wasn’t disbarred? Or that he was but you believe the Washington State Supreme Court will overturn it?

You wanted to know why people find the suit offensive, Cyrus. I explained, from my perspective. I don’t doubt that you believe (or, at least, have convinced yourself) the suit is all about the landlord trying to extort you and that you’ve been completely principled in your litigation tactics.

I just don’t buy it. As I said, I see this as a pretty clear-cut case of an attorney playing a contemptible legal “Gotcha!” game, having it blow up in his face, and then abusing the legal system for more than a decade trying to wriggle off the hook.

Well, BC, I have no idea what your perspective is, since you are, like virtually all the commentators, hiding by a pseudonym. From the perspective of a bank, a landlord or anyone who uses false reports to obtain money not owed, my conduct is an outrage. Lawyers who represented such interests or whose spouses represented such interests, or judges who fit either of the same categories, will also find my conduct to be that of the devil. I’ve got the entire banking industry claiming the decision will destroy the way they do business.

The reality, BC, is you don’t like the idea that someone with money be made to be held to his or her promises. You think if a business or company makes an offer, it gets accepted, and then it turns out to be not as good a deal as the offeror expected, then the offeror, if a landlord, bank, etc. should be given an automatic pass.

The funny thing, of course, is that when tenants or homeowners make such claims about leases or “unilateral mistake”, then persons like you would be fuming about deadbeats welshing on their deals and the threat this poses to capitalism. However, when it is one of the richest companies in California, accepting its written offer is a “contemptible legal Gotcha game”.

The reality of life is that most people instinctively bow and scrape in front of the powerful, hoping that their subservience will get them a bone. You appear, BC, to be on bended knee. But maybe I am wrong, and you are no sycophant; I look forward to your identifying yourself and explaining all of the courage you show in your career.

Scrapiron, Kozinski paid a a lot more of a penalty than he deserved with the public humiliation. Most people out there think he did something far worse and far more embarrassing than he did. Cyrus lied to all of us on this blog, and his credibility went away instantly when we realized that what he was claiming was a bald faced liar. Since then, Cyrus has added this site to his eternally long list of oppressors.

You can bet that many other judges have paid attention and indeed are doing what they can to avoid a similar problem. Jurists of Kozinksi’s caliber and reputation must be more careful than average men.

Cyrus keeps calling people liars, but he’s not showing us much evidence. His brother indeed is being disbarred and judges frequently note that Cyrus is completely wrong on the law. He’s always dead certain he’s about to win, and he always loses. Even when he loses, he’s about to ‘crush’ every enemy he’s invented. He claims the ‘entire baking industry’ is on his side, and that all the judgments against him, appeals against him, and commentary against him is universally wrong.

Cyrus Sanai spent his life trying to take advantage of good people, endlessly blustering. Many of the people he attacked and hates will be remembered as brilliant and accomplished thinkers who have helped build our society.

Cyrus and his brother were particularly weird in the way they handled their mommy’s divorce case. Said the Western District of Washington:

Plaintiffs have flatly refused to obey Orders of this Court, to cooperate with discovery, and to comply with their obligations under the Federal Rules. They have refused to appear for depositions and respond to discovery. When deposing opposing parties, their conduct has been abusive and disrespectful. They have intercepted and wiretapped the phone calls of other represented parties in this litigation. They have actively and improperly interfered with discovery, and required this Court to intervene all too frequently.

I was nosing around and found this, which seems to suggest that your brother was indeed disbarred, but is appealing the decision. So when you called it a “lie” (#63), what you really meant is that his disbarment isn’t final yet? Is that correct?

Cyrus, did you ever pay your dad the $56,000 in sanctions the court said you owed him for abusing the legal system?

I know a lot of people who are estranged from their fathers, but that’s cranking it up to 11. I honestly don’t know how to express my sympathy for you. Did you know that you don’t have to keep suing people like this? You can just live your life without trying to hurt every judge and defense counsel and dry cleaner you encounter.

My father died two years and eight months ago and there have been few nights since when I do not see him in my sleep. I hope Cyrus and his father reconcile but, despite a nasty remark I made in the past, it’s none of our business.

This is Judge Zilly writing about the legal tactic of Cyrus and his brother in the divorce:

On January 3, 2005, the Court ordered Plaintiffs to show cause why their Complaint
should not be dismissed with prejudice because of their continued misconduct, disregard for
Orders of this Court, and bad faith litigation tactics. See Minute Order, docket no. 641, at ¶
10. Plaintiffs’ conduct in this litigation has been an indescribable abuse of the legal process,
unlike anything this Judge has experienced in more than 17 years on the bench and 26 years
in private practice: outrageous, disrespectful, and in bad faith.1 Plaintiffs have employed the
most abusive and obstructive litigation tactics this Court has ever encountered, all of which
are directed at events and persons surrounding the divorce of Sassan and Viveca Sanai,
including parties, lawyers, and even judges.2 Plaintiffs have filed scores of frivolous
pleadings, forcing baseless and expensive litigation. The docket in this case approaches 700
filings, a testament to Plaintiffs’ dogged pursuit of a divorce long past.

nk, if you’ve never been to a Spencer’s or partaken in a risque joke, that doesn’t make you some kind of ultraconservative freak, but just because someone else might enjoy that brand of humor does not make them unusual or unfit to serve.

This judge does not have some kind of ultimate power… he has a very challenging job that he is well respected for performing with distinction.

I agree that his carelessness makes him look stupid and he has harmed his reputation, but he’s just a normal person. normal people look at pornography and engage in mild sexual humor.

It’s so damaging to our government that people try to banish anyone from public office who has these normal tendencies. I don’t want a bench filled only with people with zero tolerance for risque humor. I didn’t find the material all that interesting, but there’s really nothing wrong with it. The real problem is that Kozinski had awful security in place, not that he had some sinful pictures.

And let’s remember that Kozinksi has a liberal view of free speech and privacy. He would happily defend our right to have normal adult material, too.

There was something really strange about how Cyrus broke into the computer and downloaded those files before sharing them with the public (they were not really publicly available so much as someone had to hunt for them). Cyrus, I noted above, illegally wiretapped his own family when suing them. He never answered my questions about all that, and I really wonder what his setup was before it was tampered with by Cyrus (which, given Cyrus’s documented history, is still likely).

Cyrus had to reverse engineer a url string to find files that were not published for download in any way. You know, with my IP address and Windows File sharing on, it would be conceivable to get files off my desktop in the same way. This is only publicly available in the strictest sense.

But it doesn’t matter. Kozinski fixed the glitch in his server and apologized for letting this embarrassment occur. He wasn’t close to misconduct, but he deserved to be admonished.

I would bet money Cyrus is busily trying to find more files on any system this jurist and all the jurists who cleared him are affiliated with. He’s probably done so to every person in this thread he’s been able to identify. Sadly, I probably don’t have the imagination to know how far he’s gone.

I think Juan and BC have made very insightful comments on this thread. I hope they will both see fit to e-mail me. I pledge to keep their identities secret, but I would like to make their virtual acquaintance in each case.

nk, you have every right to look down on this judge and others who are amused by low brow humor. I just think it would be particularly awful for our judiciary to be uniform… in pretty much any respect.

We talk about diversity, but really… what’s diversity? Blacks, whites, hispanics, asians… that’s not diversity to me. Diversity of minds is much more important. Extremely nice people, tactlessly honest people, lazy people, industrious, humorless, etc etc. I love that Kozinski has a mind that isn’t like a ‘judge’. He works his clerks to the bone and I’ve heard a lot of complaints about him, but I think he’s a funny man with an honestly human sense of humor.

It’s a relief that we have this particular brand of diversity a lot more than the kind we can see on brochures.

Maybe Patterico can put up another post involving statistics and we can watch Cyrus get pantsed, deny it repeatedly and then run away from that thread again. His behavior has become very predictable here.

Cyrus, they’re my initials, not a pseudonym, and you’re making an awfully lot of really cavalier assumptions about what “people like me” think. You don’t know me, and you don’t have the first clue what kind of person I am other than what I’ve told you (i.e., that I’m in the legal profession).

Frankly, I don’t give a damn about rich versus poor, landlord versus tenant, or big company versus private citizen. The principle is the same: I think it’s an absolute disgrace any time an attorney tries to use his superior knowledge of the law to take advantage of others. I think it not only diminishes the individual doing it, but further erodes public confidence in the legal profession as a whole.

The bottom line here for me is that regardless of how derelict the landlord may have been in reporting you to credit bureaus rather than straightfowardly trying to collect, the original wrong was the attorney who should have known better trying to enforce what was probably a typo or transcription error against the landlord. And that wrong’s been compounded by a scorched-earth legal fight now entering its second decade, at a cost of Lord only knows how many wasted dollars.

This is a not-so-subtle dog whistle to David Petranos Esp and MKDP. May we be regaled with tales of frogmen, disability horses, snipers, and roast beef slicers posing as boat captains

I wanted to personally come on over to the friendly Patterico’s to thank Scott Jacobs, Jr. for “friending” me and sending me a message to my e-mail box on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/EquiisAutisticSavant.mkdaypetrano, to bring the above-expressed anti-autism sentiments posted earlier to my attention — what with California’s enormous rising autism problems and the apparent failure of my California colleagues to appreciate the abilities and talents of savant people with autism.

Unfortunately, when I accepted Mr. Jacob’s as a friend and informed him I was not involved in Mr. Sanai’s battles with Judge Kozinski, but had my own different issues with the 11th Circuit clerk assigned to my Title II ADA cases procuring my confidential information from the 9th Circuit clerk and making misdiagnoses of me without a medical license by saying I did not have autism — when I do in fact have a savant autism diagnosis from my neurologist, Michael W. Hoffmann, M.D. — Mr. Jacobs ran off like a rat and hid his Facebook posts he was publishing on my wall.

I did tell Mr. Jacobs, which I hope he has conveyed to all of you here at Patterico’s, everyone is more than welcome to be my friend, but I do not do things on my Facebook page in the same manner as here on Patterico’s. For one thing, I welcomed Mr. Jacobs and all of you to visit my EquiisAutisticSavantArtist website and see my Galleries, http://www.equiisautisticsavantartist.webs.com/, of magnificent savant autistic artwork that is far more exquisite than anything Cyrus found when he wrongly raided Judge K’s server and where I have included my recent Eagles painting that is far more exotic and original than any existing Eagles in any US federal courthouse anywhere.

I also asked Mr. Jacobs to let me know if there is anything he did not like about my savant art abilities and the masterpieces this helps me create, since I am one of only appx. 30-100 prodigious savant autistics in the World, diagnosed as savant in art and the law.

Since Mr. Jacobs beat such a hasty and cowardly retreat, crawling back under the rock from whence he came to seek me at my e-mail and on Facebook, I have come here to extend my welcome to all of you to enjoy one of the United States rare prodigious savant treasures and some of the most amazing art in the World.

Cyrus is also welcome, and he will not need to re-use any of his covert tools to break into my art Galleries as he did Judge K’s server, because I have extended my welcome to one and all.

Actually, Judge Kozinski was quaking behind a squad of U.S. Marshalls when he saw me last year. I doubt he has reduced the anti-Sanai response team.

BTW the resolution of Judge Kozinski’s complaint against himself is pretty much irrelevant to my litigation strategy.

The reality is that Judge Kozinski’s complaint against himself solely covered his porn-dogging. The only penalties Judge Kozinksi could suffer from the Third Circuit is various degrees of wrist-slappage. Federal judges get their wrist slapped or removed from office by Congres. They collect their salary if they are skipping out on work or even in jail There is no intermediate punishment between a rebuke and impeachment.

Kozinski got “admonished” and the complaint dismissed. What did Manuel Real get last year? He was censured for misconduct. Any difference? Not in reality. They get their paychecks, they show up for work or not, they put in three hour days, five hour days, ten hours days…or not. That’s why being a federal judge is awesome. You get paid no matter how little work you do, and unless Congress gets worked up, there is no way you can lose your job. However, that’s also why a new disciplinary system is needed.

Cyrus, I’d hazard the guess that the entire legal department of The Irvine Group and its outside counsel weren’t involved in the day-to-day management of the property, including preparing and distributing lease renewal offers and handling rent disputes with tenants in the normal course of the business. If the property was anything like the apartment complex in which I live, I imagine that you were dealing with a lay property manager, not a lawyer, until things began to escalate.

You in the legal profession, or are you an actual lawyer? I have made the mistake of assuming that some posters here, like Beldar, lacked legal training because of the bizarre arguments they made (in his case, arguing after the first Samuel Kent investigation that he had not been found guilty of some kind of sexual misconduct).

Now that I have been reminded of good ol’ Beldar, I’m gonna point out how the nonsense he spewed in 2007 and 2008, defending a guilty rapist and perjurer, is pretty much the same nonsense being spewed on this blog.

About the time of our encounter on this blog, Beldar was also writing lengthy “rants” attacking members of the Volokh Conspiracy, pressing his argument that really, Kent had done nothing wrong and could not possibly deserve impeachment. These pieces of intellectual and moral dishonesty are still posted on his blog and is absolutely worth a look. http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/2007/10/the-kent-reprim.html

Beldar’s BS is worth reviewing now, because it is the same BS being spewed by this group. Beldar argued that because the Fifth Circuit Judicial Council imposed a Kozinski-like wrist slap on Judge Kent in its initial investigation, the calls for impeachment or criminal investigation could not possibly have merit.

The problem with the initial Fifth Circuit investigation of Kent is the same problem with the investigations of Judge Kozinski, Judge Mahan and Judge Real. The investigations are not adversarial, and the judges have every incentive to throw a rug over obvious judicial misconduct. Judge Kozinski made precisely that point in his 2005 dissent in the Judge Real dissent.

Because the investigations are not adversarial, they generally end up as a whitewash. The exceptions are few. It took the pressure of Congress and various women’s groups to get law enforcement moving on Kent, demonstrating that the Fifth Circuit’s investigation, which essentially took Kent at his word, was a joke, and Beldar a putz.

The Kozinski investigation was flawed in the same way. The only person presenting evidence at the hearing and testifying was Judge Kozinski. He crafted the stipulations regarding the technical “facts” without independent audit of Kozinski’s computers. Kozinski accomplished an amazing trifecta–he filed a complaint on himself, was the only witness, presented the only documents at the hearing, and now claims he has been vindicated. How…shocking.

I’ve now taken a close look at the opinion of the Third Circuit, and I can state conclusively that if the opinion accurately transcribes Judge Kozinski’s testimony, then he lied on some key points. Because my traipse through his site was more extensive than my downloading, I had a bit more knowledge about what Kozinski was doing then the documents I distributed showed.

Now, the points on which I have spotted Judge Kozinski’s dishonesty might or might not have swayed the Council to a harsher condemnation. However, any process where you have one person testifying, when that person has crafted the terms of the process, is one where you could say “the fix is in”. Had I been called to testify, a number of Judge Kozinski’s patently ridiculous contentions would never has survived scrutiny.

The disciplinary process is not only is toothless, in the case of Kozinski and Kent, it allows the trolls on this site and elsewhere to scream vindication for the obviously guilty. Instead of leading to truth, the judicial disciplinary system largely traffics in lies and spin.

All I can say Scott, is that I hope you get sued some day in Snohomish County, WA, and have the pleasure have having your opponent’s accountant appointed as a judicial referee to decide the case. I will very much enjoy seeing where you would direct your bile were that to occur.

I went back and reviewed the Jan 09 CA opinion. Sanai won the right to go back to the trial court and to amend his eight cause of action complaint against his former landlord one more time. After all these years the case is still in the pleading stage. In the unlikely event that Sanai can get the case anywhere near a jury, any jury will crucify this jerk.

The bottom line in the Kozinski matter is that Sanai did an Op Ed piece about Kozinski in the Daily Journal provoking Kozinski to publish a letter to the editor. In retaliation, Sanai poked around in the Kozinski family web server for documents to embarrass Kozinski–like a prowler who finds the backdoor to someone’s house open–found some harmless ribald images that Kozinski and his friends humorously sent around via email like we all receive from time to time, then vindictively leaked that STOLEN material to the LAT—asserting Kozinski was unfit to preside over the pending porn-scat trial.

“The only person presenting evidence at the hearing and testifying was Judge Kozinski.”

Cyrus – Doesn’t the opinion say the investigators collected a statement from you? That was your grand chance to nail the bastard!!! Obviously the investigators must have thought it was not worth the effort to have you testify. Did you overdo it on the bombast and conspiracy theories again in your statement?

Beldar argued that because the Fifth Circuit Judicial Council imposed a Kozinski-like wrist slap on Judge Kent in its initial investigation, the calls for impeachment or criminal investigation could not possibly have merit.

That is an inaccurate characterization. I will not argue with Cyrus about it; I will just note that he has provided the link, and anyone who reads it will readily see that Cyrus has not summarized Beldar’s position fairly or accurately.

About the time of our encounter on this blog, Beldar was also writing lengthy “rants” attacking members of the Volokh Conspiracy, pressing his argument that really, Kent had done nothing wrong and could not possibly deserve impeachment.

Beldar said no such thing. I’ll quote from his post:

I know absolutely nothing about this investigation beyond what I’ve read in the Council’s order and the press. I refuse to gossip about the facts underlying the complaint and reprimand myself, and I’ll summarily delete gossip (whether about Judge Kent or the complaintant) left in the comments to this post. This isn’t about gossip.

Beldar does not express an opinion about whether Kent actually did anything wrong, Cyrus’s inaccurate claim notwithstanding. Beldar explicitly says he didn’t have access to the evidence. So how could he make such a claim?

Are you lying, Cyrus, or are you just really, really bad at reading plain English and fairly characterizing it?

Cyrus Sanai is (as one might expect) no longer with the Los Angeles law firm he was associated with when he first instigated his one-man public assault on Justice Kozinski. (Most firms have better things to occupy their lawyers time than pursuing private personal or family vendetta’s—whether against their own father, their former landlord, or judges who just happen to head the largest federal court of appeals in the United States).

Sanai, according to the State Bar of California website, now practices under a firm name derived by (apparently) contracting his first and last name into “Sanais”.

All I can say Scott, is that I hope you get sued some day in Snohomish County, WA, and have the pleasure have having your opponent’s accountant appointed as a judicial referee to decide the case. I will very much enjoy seeing where you would direct your bile were that to occur.

Being familiar with the rules and regulations CPAs conduct themselves under, I would have little problem with that, actually. Especially since it leaves stuff called facts and evidence as to what they have/are doing with the money.

Also, since that is “all you can say”, when I actually asked for links to cases you might actually have won, I’ll take that to mean that you’re actually a pretty piss-poor lawyer – on par with Jack Thompson – and have won basically nothing.

I know it’s hard, Cy, but perhaps you should attempt to make a legal argument that the majority of the legal profession would find sane and rational, not ones that only make sense in your quisling little mind.

Actually, if you follow the trajectory of Sanai’s career, no matter how many mold cases he wins or loses in the future, his career is (shall we say) not likely be in an upward arc anytime soon.

When Cyrus Sanai published the Op Ed piece in the Recorder (misrecalled by me today above as a Daily Journal article) taking on Justice Kozinski on September 16, 2005, Sanai was a transactional attorney with Buchalter Nemer in Los Angeles. (A fairly prestigious business law firm with offices in Los Angeles (Beverly Hills), Orange County, San Francisco and Scottsdale, Arizona.)

Now, Cyrus Sanai is handling mold cases filed with hand written form PI complaints from his solo office.

Sanai’s personal and family vendettas appear to have cost him his career. (Inferring that a top drawer business law firm would not view engaging the most powerful federal judge in their home state in a very public pissing contest as likely to pose a tremendous perceived upside to the firm or it’s stable of publicly listed corporate clients—all of whom do business in the 9th Circuit.)

Whether Sanai wins the next 5 or 10 mold or slip and fall on the bus/sidewalk cases in a row or not, it is still an epic fall from a once promising career perch to the position of business-firm-kryptonite–and he is still rolling around in the mud concerning Justice Kozinski on this site today and yesterday.

I guess Sanai’s bitterness and anger is all he has left.

Savor it Sanai, taste it–you sacrificed everything for it (including your inheritance from the MD father you have been suing for a decade).

Good luck with your 5 or 6 year running dispute over $1,400 in rent with your former landlord as well.

“Actually, Judge Kozinski was quaking behind a squad of U.S. Marshalls when he saw me last year.”

Cyrus – That is precious! Since it occurred at an event at which you were serving as a reporter after you leaked your purloined computer files to the LA Times and after publicly announcing your vendetta against the Judge, it remains a total mystery why Kozinski felt he might need protection.

Has anyone read the decision in Sanai v. Saltz? I have, and it was a total disaster for Cyrus Sanai, aka the worst excuse for a lawyer if there ever was one.

While Sanai is busy breaking his arm patting himself on the back for the decision in that case, maybe he should actually read what they said about him in a published decision. I assure you that I would be very surprised if Sanai still has a bar license by the time this case comes back, as the Appellate Court memorialized some of the most egregious behavior I have seen from anyone.
To be certain, of all the issues Sanai appealed, he won only two: and not because he was some great lawyer, but because he was in the right place at the right time and because of a minor procedural error.

Sanai was claiming in that he did not owe his landlord a debt after taking advantage of an obvious error in an offer and then deliberately underpaying his rent. His acceptance was also untimely, but I will get to that later.

Sanai sued for several causes of action. The Appellate Court upheld the dismissal of all of the casuses of action with prejudice, with the exception of two: A claim under Civil Code 1785.25(a), which prohibits knowingly reporting false information to the credit bureaus in the initial report; and a claim under 15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2(b).

Sanai prevailed on his 1785.25(a) claim not because he did anything, but because after oral argument, but before the decision was issued, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in Gorman v. Wolpoff & Abramson, LLP (9th Cir., Jan. 12, 2009, No. 06-17226) 552 F.3d 1008 [2009 U.S.App. Lexis 585], which found for the first time that private 1785.25(a) claims were saved from preemption.

“In a case decided several days after oral argument in this case, however, the Ninth Circuit rejected the preemption analysis in these cases. In Gorman v. Wolpoff & Abramson, LLP (9th Cir., Jan. 12, 2009, No. 06-17226) 552 F.3d 1008 [2009 U.S.App. Lexis 585], the Court of Appeals reversed the district court’s holding that the plaintiff’s section 1785.25, subdivision (a), claim against the furnisher of credit information was preempted because the private right of action to enforce that statutory provision is found in sections not specifically exempted from the federal preemption provision.” See Sanai at pg. 776.

The Appellate Court merely followed the 9th Circuit’s new interpretation of federal law. Sanai was just in the right place at the right time, as the state courts, including the California Supreme Court, did not want to cross swords with the 9th Circuit in interpreting the effect of federal preemption. However, under the facts of the case, no information was knowingly falsely reported, thus Sanai should lose on this cause of action in short order.

As for the 1681s-2(b) claim, the Appellate Court did not want admissible evidence to be the standard for leave to amend a complaint, and sent the matter back with specific instructions for Sanai to only amend this claim because Sanai apparently lied to the Court stating that he could honestly allege that Experian (the credit bureau) asked the Defendants to perform an investigation.

To be certain, Sanai had been caught in so many lies in the case that Judge Green demanded that Sanai would only be allowed to amend if his new allegation that had never come up in 9 years of litigation could be supported by some evidence. When Sanai could not come up with any evidence, the trial Court dismissed the claim without leave to amend.
The Appellate Court had difficulty with this, because of Sanai’s propensity to lie:

“If we were to consider Mr. Sanai’s proposed amendments and the proffered bases for them in the abstract—that is, without considering the trial court’s experience with the parties and the manner in which the litigation has been conducted, which spawned its “sensitiv[ity] to sham pleadings, where factual theories are changed or abandoned to fit tentative rulings”—we would have little doubt leave to amend should have been granted.”

“But this case does have an extensive history, and the trial court has every right to guard against sham pleadings and to prevent abuse of the litigation process. For example, the trial court has discretion to deny leave to amend when the proposed amendment omits or contradicts harmful facts pleaded in a prior pleading unless a showing is made of mistake or other sufficient excuse for changing the facts.”

“The trial court appears to have had good reason to be hesitant to accept new factual allegations from Mr. Sanai, at least to the extent they were inconsistent with prior allegations (as, for example, seems to have been the case with respect to allegations regarding the timing of Mr. Sanai’s purported acceptance of the offer for a one-year lease at $ 1,410 per month); but it went too far when it demanded the production of admissible evidence, specifically excluding Mr. Sanai’s own testimony, to support the proposed amendment to the complaint while at the same time preventing Mr. Sanai from conducting any discovery.”

Even the Court stated that it believed Sanai was lying and that he had no chance in winning this cause of action upon remand, but that the Court went too far when it required admissible evidence to amend.

“To be sure, Mr. Sanai did not offer his more refined version of events until the required pleading elements for a private cause of action under 15 United States Code section 1681s-2(b) were articulated by the court. And we are aware, as the Saltz parties argued in the trial court, evidence adduced in connection with the special motion to strike under Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16 and Mr. Sanai’s motion for a preliminary injunction suggests Mr. Sanai may be unlikely to prove his claim. But the question before us is not whether Mr. Sanai’s evidence will be sufficient to prevail at trial or even to survive summary judgment but whether his allegations of notice are adequate to state a cause of action.”

The rest of the decision is a disaster for Sanai:

The Appellate Court memorialized Sanai’s propensity for lying in his complaints in a footnote regarding the fact that he was trying to undo the fact that his original complaint memorialized that his acceptance of the mistaken offer was unitmely:

“In particular, responding to the argument his October 1, 1998 acceptance of the offer for a one-year lease at $ 1,410 per month was ineffective because it was one day late, Mr. Sanai’s proposed amendments variously alleged he had accepted the offer “by a letter and check that were timely delivered”; “by a letter delivered prior to October 1, 1998”; by a letter dated October 1, 1998 (as originally alleged) that was delivered “on or before October 1, 1998”; and after being informed by the apartment complex’s staff “the offer could be accepted on or before October 1, 1998.”

Also memorialized is that trial Court found that Sanai committed a fraud on the Court in fraudulently obtaining abstracts of judgments. This ruling was upheld by the Appellate Court:

“Yet another clash erupted over Mr. Sanai’s procurement of an abstract of judgment in October 2006 for the full amount reflected in his memorandum of costs after judgment notwithstanding the trial court’s July 31, 2006 order striking the memorandum. On March 9, 2007 the court recalled and quashed the abstract of judgment, finding “Plaintiff Cyrus Sanai (‘Plaintiff’ or ‘Sanai’) fraudulently obtained from this Court on October 18, 2006 an Abstract of Judgment in the amount of $ 143,469.96, and wrongfully caused this Abstract of Judgment to be recorded with the Los Angeles County Recorder’s Office … .””

As for the memorandum of costs on appeal that Sanai filed, but did not serve, Sanai got caught trying to pull a fast one, again! Sanai tried to argue that he was entitled to 137,800 in attorneys’ fees because he was entitled to restitution of moneys spent pursuing his case while the matter was supposed to be stayed (he lost his case during that time period and apparently wanted a due over). The Appellate Court made sure to embarrass Sanai and point out to the world his underhandedness in the following statement:

“At a March 8, 2007 hearing Mr. Sanai attempted to explain, “Yes, I did it through the memorandum of costs procedure rather than doing it through the procedure of filing a motion, which would request the same thing, because it is the same thing.” Of course, it is not the same. Even if the Saltz parties had failed to file a timely response to a motion for restitution, Mr. Sanai would still bear the burden of establishing by competent evidence and relevant law his entitlement to any sums requested. Yet, at least according to Mr. Sanai, pursuant to the procedures governing a memorandum of costs after judgment, the failure to file a timely motion to tax costs results in an enforceable judgment in his favor whether or not he is, in fact, entitled to restitution.”

Let us not forget this doozey:

“The trial court ruled Mr. Sanai’s service of his memorandum of costs after judgment was defective as to the various corporate defendants (although not as to Mr. Saltz personally) and expressly found Mr. Sanai “intentionally altered court documents to show that certain individuals were served on behalf of corporate defendants.” “

In doing this, the Appellate Court affirmed a judgment against Sanai in the amount $50,501.25 for attorneys’ fees in having to deal with his game playing on the fraudulently obtained abstracts. Some victory for Sanai? Hardly.

Finally, the Appellate Court specifically found that Judge Green was not biased and that there was no reason to remove him. According to the Superior Court website, Sanai, the chicken that he is, filed a 170.6 declaration upon remand to get another judge. Thus, do not believe him when he says that Judge Green was removed from the case for any reason other than Sanai’s own procedural game playing.

I can assure you that this decision will be Sanai’s undoing. I would be shocked if the State Bar is not waiting until the final outcome of this case to take away his bar license.
Fraud on the Court, criminal conduct of altering court documents, disobeying appellate court orders, attacking judges, filing sham pleadings, etc. etc., all memorialized against Sanai in a published decision. Only a moron would read this and believe that such a decision was a victory for Sanai.

Mr. Escobar – Thank you for your efforts. The decisions related to Cyrus in California and in Washington indeed do not make pleasant reading. For those who take the time to wade through them, his attempts to whitewash the conclusions here and on other sites are laughable.

P Escobar, that took effort to write, and I appreciate that effort. It would be an endless battle to shut down every fraud and jerk, but such efforts somehow don’t seem wasted.

Cyrus is such a bad person. It’s hard not to feel sympathy for someone who seems so consistently paranoid about being slighted. I honestly would be shocked if his brain is in perfect medical order. But still, he knows enough to know he needs to run his legal views by someone else before suing everyone. I just look at all the lives he has badly damaged through extremely expensive litigation.

Cyrus, I honestly just want you to stop, apologize, and give up your bar license. You are able to make a living in another way.

I am still waiting on David Petranos Esq. and MKDP and their seeing-eye horse, frogmen, roast beef slicers, snipers, and boat captains. Please, Allah?! I ask so very little of you. Those two make Cyrus the Virus seem rational, sane, and competent.

The Third Circuit deliberately ignored the most critical piece of objective evidence in the matter, allowing it to be completely spoliated by the Judge.

I came back here for the different purpose of seeing if one and all got the opportunity to visit my art Galleries on my EquiiaAutisticSavantArtist website (http://www.equiisautisticsavantartist.webs.com/) to celebrate my autism, but while scrolling down to the comment window, I couldn’t help be thunderstruck by the idiocy of the above-Cyrus comment, and believe me, that is no small faux coming from Cyrus, one who is NOT an “idiot savant,” as it were. So please allow some commentary on the matter by one who is DX as an “idiot savant,” otherwise known as an autistic savant.

Of course, Judge K, the ultimate judicial prodigy, and recognizably so, must be rolling on the floor in laughter echoing from one end of his chambers to the other. And to prevent this, did Judge K have any obligation to teach the young buck challenger, Cyrus, the intricacies of the law ? No …, Cyrus was God-given the freedom under our Constitution to entangle himself in his own lasoo all by his own doings.

That’s why (duh, a light bulb is now belatedly going off in Cyrus’ brain neurons somewhere … and it’s not in the Third Circuit), there are the rules governing federal Judicial Misconduct matters !!! They are special proceedings !!! No different than the 30-100 or so prodigious savant autistics in the World such as myself as special.

The feds always have an answer for EVERYTHING !!!

And Judge K, no doubt, is sitting there in his High Chambers issuing yet another proclamation:, and one deservedly that should be framed in gold and hung on the wall for posterity: “Another one bites the dust !” (And I didn’t have to do a thing !)

Way to go Judge K — the true mark of a genius !! Knows when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em.

It has truly been for all of us, compliments of Cyrus, Entertainment Live !

126.I am still waiting on David Petranos Esq. and MKDP and their seeing-eye horse, frogmen, roast beef slicers, snipers, and boat captains. Please, Allah?! I ask so very little of you. Those two make Cyrus the Virus seem rational, sane, and competent.

Comment by JD — 7/6/2009

Hey, JD, missed your effervescence on my Facebook page !! Please tell all: before you ran off like the cowardly rat that you are …

did it take a court order for you to remove your Facebook posts from my Wall where you put them when you came in your attempt to carry out an entrapment on me involving Judge K and this patterico thread, and for you to remove your name from my “friends” list after you came to me asking me to add you to my Facebook page as a “friend ” when you found out I admire Judge K ?

Or didn’t you like my different rules of play on my own Facebook page — the RodneyKing-esque “can’t everyone just get along” rules ?

Did you disclose to the US military you blabbed so much about to everyone that you have such a cowardly streak ? I thought the US military preferred HEROS !! You know, the material from which are made Purple Hearts and such. Oh, drat, what do I know anyway ?

But hey, I don’t hold nothin’ against anyone. I have extended an open invite to one and all to visit my savant art Galleries and be my friend on my Facebook page and indulge themselves in my prodigious savant humor, remember ?

[...] being slandered by this paper all last year, Judge Alex Kozinski saw the proceedings against him concluded without a finding of misconduct. The paper chose instead to fixate on some footnote concerning a gag e-mail list Kozinski had a few [...]